


all those other worlds we've been

by chondri



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, References to Depression, beep beep delete, i'm looking at you monika
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-03-25 18:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13840143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chondri/pseuds/chondri
Summary: There's something... off about Monika.She wasn't like this when she was in his class last year. There's a bizarre feeling of out-of-place and shouldn't-be-here anddifferent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay! so i wrote this in class for some quick-write thing. i couldn't think of anything, and i thought, "hmm. what would all the horrors of ddlc be like to an ordinary person? how would someone respond to someone's eyes disappearing or neck snapping or even just the concept of "deleting" people?" and thus, this was born. it's my first fic on this site, so please tell me what you think so far!

There's something... off about Monika.  
She wasn't like this when she was in his class last year. There's a bizarre feeling of out-of-place and shouldn't-be-here and _different_  every time he looks at her. She'll ask him what's wrong, and "Is there something on my face?", and he'll get tongue-tied, shake his head, and plaster a fake smile on his face because he doesn’t know what’s wrong.  
He forgets about it, after the rush of having Sayori open up to him about her depression and the weight of her confession. He feels like a horrible friend- a horrible _person_.  
The next morning, the feeling comes back in a wave. There’s something else too- dread; pure and utter dread for something terrible that’s bound to happen. But there’s no reason for it. It’s the day of the festival, after all.

* * *

Sayori isn’t in the club room, but her poem is. He unfolds it, and something terrible looms over the horizon.  
_Get out of my head_ , the poem reads. _Get out of my head_.  
He goes to her house. She must have overslept again.  
Opening the door to her room, he calls.  
“Sayo-”

* * *

It’s an ordinary day, like any other. But something’s wrong. He feels grief. Grief for S̨̧͔̮̮̘̪̩̙͙͊͗̋ͥ̐ͣ̽a̴̡̨̛̦̥̭̭̺̯̼̗͕̥̬̠̰̿̈͐̒͗̐͐̎̉̏̒̎ͬ͗̇ͨ͝ỵ͇̗̬͙̬͚̪͈̯͕͚̳̮̀̆ͥo͆̿͛ͦͭ̍̈́́ͤ̏̍ͭ͌̚͜҉̟̹͎̫͙̫̙̭̗̘͎͕̙͔̦͎̪̘r̸̛̦̹̦̱̹̮̘͍̙͎̞͓̯̳͚ͤ̿̾͊ͩͪ̓̔͆̆ͮͧ͑i̷̴̯̭̰̺̬̱͚͇͓̜͌ͨ̾͌̿͐͘͢ͅͅ.  
Whoever Sayori is, she’s blaming him. He knows she is.  
_Get out of my head_ , he thinks, and doesn’t know why it sounds so familiar.

* * *

Monika-she was in his class last year, he remembers- leads him into the Literature Club clubroom, telling him she’s so excited he’s here.  
The other two members- Natsuki and Yuri- seem oddly familiar. He knows them.  
And yet.

He doesn’t.

* * *

He had been reading with Natsuki when it happened. She’d collapsed into him, and he thought she fell asleep. But then she’s speaking, her eyes and mouth distorted into something darker than the void between the stars. He can’t make sense of anything that’s coming out of whatever her mouth has become.

  
Vaguely, it reminds him of the sound a computer makes when it glitches.


	2. you cant steal the rope you hung my friend with

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri smiles- her face wan, her expression wild, and her body rigid. Her breath stutters as she chokes on a breathless giggle.  
> It isn't a very nice smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i completely forgot about this whoops

Yuri smiles - her face wan, her expression wild, and her body rigid. Her breath stutters as she chokes on a breathless giggle.

It isn’t a very nice smile.

“I-I don’t care if anymore! I have to tell you!” Yuri’s eyes widen, insanity dancing in their depths. “I’m… I’m madly in love with you!”

 He doesn’t know what to say. Who would, in a situation like this?

Yuri blathers on, her gaze never losing that hint of madness. 

“Do you accept my confession?”

It feels like his mouth can’t move. He’s frozen, trapped not only by the walls in the room but by this girl in front of him - this girl who clearly doesn’t care anymore, this girl who has completely descended into insanity.

His mouth moves, maybe says an affirmative - how would he know, he can’t even control his own actions lately - and Yuri laughs.

She laughs, and laughs, and her laughs can’t even be called laughs anymore - they’re cackles now, cackles that rival those of the witches described in children's fairy-tales.

The knife she pulls out should have been enough warning that something was wrong.

She was dead before he knew it.

He slumps down in disbelief. It feels like an eternity passes as he finds himself unable to move; barely able to process this dead girl in front of him.

Yuri is mumbling something - but how can she speak, she’s dead - and he finds himself being almost  _ bored _ , bored of sitting and watching a corpse, bored of listening to a dead girl’s mindless chatter, bored of just being  _ there _ , of being the first and maybe last person to see a once-pleasant girl’s descent into madness.

A droning sound builds in his ears.

 He ends up spending the entire weekend with her- just like she wanted, but probably not the way she imagined.

The next morning, Natsuki is the first to come in. He can barely work up the motivation to lift his head up to greet her. The white-noise fuzzing up his ears doesn’t let up.

“Wow, you’re pretty early toda- EEYAHH!!”

Her pupils dilate as she screams. “AAAAH!!”

She throws up, then runs out of the room. Monika is next to enter. “Hi! I just saw Natsuki run out… what happened - oh. Oh.”

Finally seeming to notice Yuri’s corpse, Monika’s expression changes to something unreadable. What was she going to do? Cry? Break down? Throw up and run away, like Natsuki did?

Slowly, Monika’s mouth curves up into a smile. “Ahaha… well that’s a shame.”

Monika begins talking, something along the lines of: “Oh, were you here the whole weekend? I didn’t realize the script was broken that badly…”   
What script? Like a script for a play? A script for a movie? A script for a game? 

This can’t be real. He never joined the Literature Club, did he? Nothing is real. It’s all a dream- it has to be a dream.

“I’m almost done.” Monika says, and Yuri’s body is gone. 

 But wait- 

_ Who is Yuri? _

Where’s Natsuki? It’s the day of the festival, after al-

_ Who is Natsuki? _   


“This should only take a moment.” Monika’s voice echoes, and the world fades to black.

* * *

 

He wakes with a start (but he wasn’t asleep, was he?), coming to face to face with Monika. They’re in a classroom- but whatever is happening outside those windows (pulsating galaxies, golden clouds of stardust, and the infinite void of space), it doesn’t belong in the world he lives in.

 Monika’s expression becomes vaguely annoyed. “Oh jeez,” she sighs, seemingly not towards him but  _ through  _ him, like he’s a window. “Sorry about this. This guy doesn't seem to have any manners.” Again with the talking to nobody.

He looks around. The classroom is, without a doubt, completely empty. “W-What do you mean?”

Monika gives a huff of exasperation “I can’t get rid of you… you don’t have a character file to delete. And if you didn’t exist… I won’t be able to talk to them anymore.”

 Who’s this ‘them’? Trying to distract both her and himself, he asks, “And what’s with this setup? Why am I bound to a chair? For that matter, where are we?”

Wordlessly, Monika looks closely at his eyes. Not  _ at _ , actually. More like  _ through _ . Like she’ll be able to find answers if she looks through his head.

“Oh well.” Monika flourishes a rope (where did she get it? the little voice niggling at the back of his head whispers), knots it, and stuffs it in his mouth. “I didn’t want to do this- but, well, this rope was the only one I could find. I hope you don’t mind being gagged by the same rope that Sayori hung herself with.”

 “Alright. Where did I leave off?” Monika’s scooted her chair closer, and has started doing the thing where she speaks to someone that isn’t there. “Aha! Yes, ha-”

Monika’s gone, but her screams still reach him. “What- What’s happening? It hurts... Help me. HELP ME!”

The classroom vanishes, and he’s left floating along with the golden stardust and the lonely, lonely void.

A voice reaches his ears. “I’m sorry,” It says, and the world fades once more- but this time, to white.

* * *

 

It’s an ordinary day, like any other. 

“Heeeeeeey! Hey!”

He sighs. Sayori, up to her usual antics. 

Sayori makes her way over to him, bouncy and bright as usual. Her gaze is a little different- like she’s looking for something.

“Do you remember?” She asks, out of the blue. She peers just a little too close at his eyes.

“Remember what?” And then it hits him.

He remembers. Everything that happened. He gasps, and clutches his head.

Sayori smiles, but it’s slow and soft and sad. “You’re back,” she says, and he doesn’t know what she means, but he gives her the biggest hug anyway. “Not that- that person. You. My friend.”

He chokes up a little.

“Do you remember your name?” Sayori asks. “Last time, your name just sort of changed. Like- I knew it, but it was something kind of like a placeholder of sorts.”

He racks his brain.  “A-” The sound is foreign on his tongue. 

“Arata?” he tries. “Arata.”

Sayori beams. “Arata, huh? Means fresh, or new, right? I like it!”

Arata returns her grin.

A fresh start. A new tomorrow.

(And maybe somewhere, in a not-so lonely classroom floating in the middle of nothingness, Monika’s lips upturn in a grin as she plays the obligatory triumphant ending cadence on her piano for you to hear.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wholesome ending woo

**Author's Note:**

> huffs
> 
>  
> 
> protag is my spirit animal because literally all his choices and reactions are mine


End file.
